September is National Child Passenger Safety Month

Every 33 seconds, the National Safety Council (NSC) reports that a child in this country is involved in a car crash. Every nine days, another child dies from heat stroke in a car. And 66 children are killed annually in backup crashes. Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of unintentional injuries and deaths throughout childhood.

These are preventable deaths, says Amy Artuso, a USF College of Public Health graduate who is also a senior program manager and mobility expert with the National Safety Council. She is working as the program manager for a team of child passenger safety experts to form the National Digital Car Seat Check Form (NCDF). The team consists of experts from NSC, Tennessee Tech University iCube and Westat, a company that provides research services to the U.S. government.

The NCDF is a free resource to help child passenger safety technicians (CPST) digitally document car seat checks. Technicians can input data collected at car seat check events and then use that data to monitor trends and highlight issues encountered in the field. While the data collected is primarily used to inform CPSTs, child passenger safety programs and car seat and vehicle manufacturers, Artuso notes that these forms can contribute to the safer design and engineering of car seats and automobiles alike. 

Artuso, who earned her MPH from the COPH with a concentration in maternal and child health, and is now a third-year DrPH student at USF, first became interested in the use of a digital car seat safety check form after attending a 2016 child passenger safety conference. “There was clearly an interest among child passenger safety constituents for a digital check form for car seat checks while working with parents and caregivers,” Artuso says. “At that time, there was not one national standardized digital check form available for use by all U.S. certified CPSTs.”

Released in 2018, the NDCF tracks patterns from car seat safety events about how a car seat is being used and how it’s been installed in the vehicle. It also documents any instruction that was given to the family by the CPSTs, including information about leaving a child in a car seat or vehicle unattended and checking for car seat and vehicle recalls. The form also tracks how the car seat is positioned and secured in the vehicle at the end of the event.

As of the end of August, says Artuso, 85,236 check forms have been entered into the NDCF. The data entered into the NDCF depicts a 60% postnatal misuse rate—meaning 60% of car seats that have been checked by CPSTs and that children ride in are not used correctly. 

“Child passenger safety is similar to putting a puzzle together,” Artuso says. “Every child, vehicle and car seat/booster seat are different. Understanding how children fit in a vehicle with a federally approved child restraint improves that child’s safety during transportation.”

For anyone doubting whether they have installed a car seat properly or that their child is restrained correctly, Artuso notes support from specially trained child passenger safety technicians is available, often at no cost. And for families that cannot afford a car seat, community programs can provide child restraints at reduced or no cost so that children can leave a car seat check safer than when they arrived.

“By improving car seat and vehicle compatibility through a review of car seat check data, as well as organically eliminating common forms of misuse through improved product engineering, we may be able to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities that occur during motor vehicle crashes,” Artuso adds.  

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health